Running and launching a startup is no easy feat. It takes a lot of grit, determination, and countless long nights.
If you are leading a small but mighty startup team, you need to find ways to maintain happiness and camaraderie. At the same time, you want to make sure your startup is continuing to grow and lean into that. The bottom line is that productivity is key to the startup life!
But saying you want to be productive and actually being productive are two different things. Yes, adopting a productive mindset can certainly help, but that will only take you so far. Without the right tools, you and your team will soon fall short. There are, after all, only so many cups of coffee a human can actually consume!
If you find yourself in this position, keep reading. Outlined below are some practical things you can do to actually boost productivity. Implement these tips today, and you’ll see both short- and long-term improvements in your business — over-caffeination not required.
1. Maximize Efficiency
In order for your startup to grow and succeed, you need to prioritize efficiency. There are only so many hours in the day and only so many teammates to do the work. If everyone on the team is covering the same ground, you’re not going to move forward. Delegate particular roles and tasks to individual teammates. This will give them autonomy over certain responsibilities and allow for multiple aspects of the business to thrive.
Make sure team meetings requiring all members are both necessary and useful. Yes, everyone should know the startup’s missions and goals, but not everyone needs to be involved in every decision. Really think about who needs to be involved. This is a leadership skill you can take with you as your startup continues to grow in size.
Efficiency also means having the right equipment and tools at hand, specifically Wi-Fi. If your team is meeting in one central location, make sure to find a small business Wi-Fi solution that makes sense for your needs. If you’re developing code or analyzing large data sets, you’ll likely need more bandwidth than if you are sending emails or designing a website. A secure, reliable Wi-Fi connection is essential to enabling your team to work at maximum efficiency.
2. Keep Tabs on Progress
Running a startup is fast-paced. You and your team are likely trying to find investors and customers and are working on the back end of the product at the same time. Everyone is putting out fires and figuring out problems and challenges in real time. You’re in constant “go mode.”
When you don’t have a moment to breathe, it can be hard to see whether you are being productive. And it can be harder still to track the productivity of your team members, especially if some are working remotely. You might propose daily check-ins to gauge progress on essential tasks, but that could hinder rather than help productivity. Even before the pandemic, 67% of workers said excessive time spent in meetings was impairing their effectiveness.
Fortunately, there is a better way. Project management software allows you to assign tasks and instantly check the status of work in progress. If a subtask has stalled or a deadline is missed, you’ll see it in an instant — and know who is responsible.
Not that project management tools turn you into Big Brother. Rather, they make assignments and handoffs clear to everyone, so employees can be accountable for their own work. They’ll also know whom to ask if they need help clearing a roadblock. This combination of well-defined responsibilities and collaborative opportunity enables team members to optimize their productivity.
3. Trust Your Team
If you’re the leader of your startup, you likely thought of its original concept. You initiated the idea and laid out how it could become the basis of a realistic company. As the owner of the idea, you want it to succeed so badly that you have trouble releasing some control.
To lead an efficient team, you need to take a step back. You hired your team members for a reason. They are well-equipped to solve problems and tackle challenges on their own. Even if they didn’t think of the idea themselves, they believe in the startup’s mission and goals.
Giving your team independence shows that you trust them. It also gives them motivation to work in a self-directed way, which in turn will increase their productivity.
When you aren’t micromanaging every team member, you can also be more productive yourself. You can find time to meet with other startup leaders and discuss mutual challenges. You can take the online courses or do the research that you didn’t have time to do before. There are many digital resources available that can help you prioritize next steps for your business. Doing so may enable you to identify an expansion opportunity or meet someone that can really help your business grow.
